Winter Holiday. Arthur Ransome

CODE. FROM DICK’S POCKET-BOOK

      “Same thing as Holly Howe really,” said Nancy, “because we’d be rowing over to Holly Howe to fetch you.”

      “But it might mean bringing different luggage,” said Susan.

      “Gear,” said Titty.

      Everybody agreed at once that a north cone on the top of a diamond was the best signal to mean “North Pole.”

      “But how are we to know where it is?” asked Dick.

      “We don’t,” said John, “except that it’s at the head of the lake. Nancy and Peggy know, of course, but that can’t be helped. But we’ve never been up there at all. We’ve got to find it.”

      South cone over diamond and south cone over square were clearly the right signals for the island and for Dixon’s Farm, because both of these were towards the southern end of the lake.

      “The signal for the day goes up first thing in the morning,” said John, “and whoever sees it hoists the same one, so that there can be no mistake.”

      “That leaves three signals not settled,” said Dick, who had also been working out the possible combinations of squares and diamonds and north and south cones.

      “Something’s sure to turn up for them,” said Nancy. “Anyhow, these’ll be jolly useful, because you can read them right away.”

      “Before we’ve done any of our homework,” said Dorothea, looking doubtfully at all the dots and dashes of the Morse code and wondering how long it would take her to learn them.

      After dinner they went to the tarn and skated again, and then, late in the afternoon, Nancy called another signal practice. Dick and Nancy went up to the observatory, while John and Dorothea climbed the bracken ridge on the farther side of the tarn. The others rested their shins and ankles but would not leave the ice.

      With much looking up of the alphabet and prompting from their teachers, who now and then had to take the flags themselves and explain the muddle by some hurried, skilful flapping of their own, Dorothea and Dick sent their first slow messages to each other, such messages as “Sit down,” or “Stand up,” when it was easy to see at once whether the message had been understood.

      At last John took the flag and signalled “Enough,” and Nancy was just picking up her skates to go down from the loft and back to the tarn, when Dick asked a question that had long been in his mind.

      SEMAPHORE CODE DRAWN BY NANCY IN DICK’S POCKET-BOOK

      “What were those other signals you were doing on the island?” he asked. “Signals without any flapping at all.”

      “Scarecrow signalling,” said Nancy. “Semaphore. Tons better in some ways, but more people know Morse. Come on. Where’s that book of yours? You’d better have it down. Hang, I’ve left my pencil in the igloo.”

      “I’ve got a fountain pen,” said Dick.

      “Let’s have it,” said Nancy, and Dick gave her pocket-book and pen together. She plumped down on the floor of the loft, scribbled down the letters of the alphabet, and over each letter drew a figure showing how flags should be held to signal that particular letter.

      “I’ve shoved a face in once, just to remind you which way you’re supposed to be looking when you make the signal. If you get that wrong, everything else is wrong, too.”

      Dick watched with interest.

      “Which matters most?” he said. “This or Morse?”

      “You ought to know both,” she said. “You can’t mix them up because one is dots and dashes and moving about all the time, and in the other each letter stays still while you make it, or at least you stay still while you’re making a letter.”

      “We’ll do it,” said Dick, “but it’ll take some time. That’s two whole codes and the signals between here and Holly Howe.”

      “Those don’t count,” said Nancy. “They just hang and you can be as slow as you like about looking them up.”

      “What about signalling to you?”

      Nancy looked out from the loft, across the lake, beyond the islands.

      “It’s too far,” she said, “except with lights. You could do it with a lantern. We will some time or other, when you’ve learnt Morse. Anyway, there’s not much point in it because we come to Holly Howe every day and we’ll be signalling from there. But I’ll tell you what,” she went on. “The day we’re all going to the North Pole, I’ll yank a flag up on the Beckfoot promontory so that everybody can see it . . . Over there, beyond the islands, running out into the lake on the far side . . . No . . . farther along . . . Woods behind, at the back of it, then just heather and rock. You can see our old flagstaff near the point.”

      ANOTHER PAGE FROM DICK’S POCKET-BOOK

      Dick was looking through his telescope.

      “Not a very big one,” he said.

      “Big enough to hang a flag on,” said Nancy. “Yes. I’ll hang one up to mean ‘Starting for the Pole.’ They can see it from just above Holly Howe and you can see it from here.”

      “I’d better write that down,” said Dick, and at the bottom of a page of notes, mostly scientific, he scribbled, “Flag at Beckfoot = Start for Pole.”

      “If only the snow would come,” said Nancy, “and give the Arctic half a chance. If it comes quick there might still be a bit of ice round the edges. And anyway, with snow, we can use the sledge. Beastly going to the North Pole over plain grass. Hullo, what’s that brat trying to signal?”

      Everybody else was back on the tarn, looking up towards the observatory and beckoning to Nancy and Dick to come down and join them. Roger had got hold of one of the flags, and, standing on the ice, was busily flapping a message. Nancy read the letters out as they came. “L-A-Z-Y-B-O-N-E-S.” “Shiver my timbers,” she said. “What cheek. He means us. Well. Come on. Let’s have one more good go of skating before going home.”

      She went racing down the stone steps and away to the tarn to put on her skates, while Roger, his arms whirling like the sails of a windmill by way of helping his legs, was getting himself as far out of reach as the ice would allow. Dick followed her. But there was no more talk of signals that day. Susan thought Titty and Roger had done about enough skating. It was time to go home. And that night there were no lantern signals from Holly Howe or the observatory. The sky was clouded over and the astronomer and his assistant sat in the farm kitchen, trying to learn the Morse code by writing letters to each other in dots and dashes. Softly, at first, as if it hardly meant it, the snow began to fall.

CHAPTER VI

      SNOW

      DOROTHEA woke with a dreadful fear that she had overslept. The room was full of light. The ceiling gleamed white. The blue flowers that made a pattern on the wall-paper (in slanting lines, in straight lines up and down, and in straight lines from side to side, whichever way she chose to count them) were somehow brighter than they had been on any other morning. Had the sun been up a long time? And then, looking at the window, Dorothea saw the white snow deep across the sill. She leapt out of bed and ran to the window. There was a new world. Everything was white, and somehow still. Everything was holding its breath. The field stretching down to the lake was like a brilliant white counterpane without a crinkle in it. The yew trees close by the farm-house were laden with snow. The lower branches of the old fir were pressed right down to the ground by the weight of